That Was 2018

Added 04/01/2019 by Stuart Rodgers

Hi guys, it’s been a while since I did anything on the site, my days as far as The Indy Corner go are posting stuff others have sent in or doing stuff on the twitter/facebook/instagram accounts. I do miss podcasting, the site was originally set up for the podcast and all the stuff that has come with it has been a bonus. I hope one day to get back podcasting but with what the guys do on the Spotlight show as well as other shows that do shows elsewhere that cover the British scene I’m in need of ideas to get back to it to make it different.

Onto the spotlight show, the 3 guys do a tremendous job, if you’re on twitter give the guys, well two of them, a follow – Benno & JP hopefully one day Joe will return to that platform but somehow, I don’t think so. They have been doing some great work over the last year, always have great discussions be that the BritWres scene, NJPW and even WWE talk creeps in there sometime but the discussion on the soap operas is always good fun, Joe, like myself, is a big fan of The Bill so I’m always into his talk on that show (why oh why did they get rid of that show?). I hope by the time of you reading this you listened to the year end special which was a Q&A session with the guys, all questions were submitted on twitter using the hashtag #AskRevJoe, I hope you all get the meaning of that. It was a great, long podcast covering a wide range of subjects, talking about it here wouldn’t do it justice so give it a listen yourselves – listen on SoundCloud HERE or there of course is iTunes or pretty much anywhere else you get your podcasts from.

The content on the website for the written stuff has also been excellent, 2018 saw the inclusion of the #ClapsAndClaps reviews from Andy Ogden covering many promotions from up and down the country. Andy doesn’t just review the wrestling, he’ll be sure to point out the best pubs, dining establishments and anything else he feels is relevant to your whole package of being an intrepid traveller to wrestling shows.

Luke Hickey also joined the site in 2018 and he has, like Andy, provided tons of content for the site focusing on the Japanese wrestling side of things, I know I am looking forward to his take on the upcoming NJPW Wrestle Kingdom show.

I want to thank all the above and everyone else who has contributed to The Indy Corner be that podcasts, site content or something that I am also very thankful for and that is results being live tweeted from shows. Good brother Dave Green often covers the PROGRESS shows and other shows down south and another good brother is Dan Donnelly who is usually our man on the scene at Fight Club: PRO shows in Wolverhampton. Huge thanks all.

Onto wrestling, I have not been to much live wrestling at all myself this year, poor excuse really but family life just takes priority, would love to get out to Fight Club: PRO every month, I started going there in the summer of 2011 and on early incarnations of The Indy Corner when it was a segment on another podcast I’d put the promotion over to anyone and everyone who would listen. A lot has changed in the promotion over the last couple of years, the expansion is the most notable, when I first started going it was in a little gritty nightclub in Wolverhampton called The Planet and the ‘Fight Club’ name seemed very fitting, there didn’t seem to be much promotion for the shows so that kept it quite ‘underground’. The talent they have through the door over the years has been immense. they have some of their older stuff on YouTube but it would be great if one day they were able to get the old shows on their Vimeo channel which currently hosts their newer stuff.

The landscape is changing constantly, the WWE have ‘invaded our shores’ well, they have set up a base of sorts here. They first gave us what was known as WWE UK which is now NXT UK and many speculated as to why this was happening, a sceptic may say it was due to the fact ITV were going ahead with a series of World Of Sport Wrestling but whatever the reason it has given many of the lads and lasses who ply their trade here (not just the Brits) more of a pay day, yes, with that contract comes some bullet points which include they are no longer available to work with certain other promotions and the main one I feel took a big hit was Rev-Pro. promoter Andy Quildan had a number of wrestlers in prominent positions in Rev-Pro but all that went away when WWE did what they did. Now, I just want to make it clear, I don’t begrudge the guys signing with them, for a lot of them it has been their dream to work under the umbrella of the WWE, most if not all, watched the WWE growing up and as I said, its a dream come true of sorts to have a job with the promotion but like when a lot of the top US/Canadian guys went to NXT/WWE I was down a bit because I’d not get to seem them in an enviromement where I felt I would see them wrestle matches in a style I have come to love. When some of the guys started leaving the indies I had people on more than one occasion say to me “I guess you’ll start watching NXT now?” And in short, I said “no”. For me, I may of liked the guys but they would be under the umbrella of the WWE so I don’t think I would enjoy it. This comes first circle, I hear people saying the current NXT UK shows are not very good at all and yet, many of the guys on the shows have been huge favourites to those who saw them at Indy shows and yes, that says it all it’s that umbrella again.

PROGRESS and the people involved in the promotion have also had a crazy 2018, they did their biggest ever show with over 4,000 at Wembley SSE and tours over in the US, Australia and Germany but in saying that, there has been a decent amount of discontent amongst some of the fans of the PROGRESS product. Maybe the 3 mates behind the promotion are spreading themselves thin as they are also executive producers of NXT UK. I’m not sure what that entails but hey, good for them but I think we can say, the days of ‘Punk Rock Pro Wrestling’ are gone. People are asking I wonder what 2019 has in stall for PROGRESS, well I don’t think there will be as many shows as previous years and it’ll be interesting just how long this NXT UK gig runs for and if it does hit the fan how it affects PROGRESS in the way of as there maybe more focus the shows may improve to those fans who have been luke warm on the promotion over the last 12-18 months.

I think I have rambled on enough, once again, thanks to everyone who has been part of the site this past year and thanks to all those who follow our social media platforms, your support is very appreciated.

You can always follow me personally on twitter @WLHSTU or just follow the main account for the website.

We are always looking for advertisers for the site so if your interested at all hit me up via email on theindycorner@aol.co.uk

Support always welcome for the running costs of the site/podcast which you can do HERE